New power line for data centers could impact private land in Virginia

Proposed route could run through family's backyard

Vicky Hu, Madison Hu Taggart and Will Taggart (left to right) live in Loudoun Valley Estates in Ashburn, VA, where regulators are working to find the best route for a new power line. One option would run through this section of their yard.

Loudoun County, VA, is home to more data centers than anywhere else in the world. But, like most of the county’s residents, Vicky Hu didn’t know much about the industry or its growing power demands, even as it required more transmission lines to be built across the region.

But that started to change when she got a phone call in mid-June telling her that one of those new lines might be running through her backyard.

“We never visualized what was really going on until it hit our home,” said Hu, who shares her 6-bedroom house with Will Taggart and their daughter Madison Hu Taggart.

The proposed “Golden to Mars” power line slated to run across her yard is the third of three segments of a new high-voltage transmission loop being built to bring bulk electricity into Loudoun County’s Data Center Alley. And it may prove to be the most difficult to route through a region that is already well developed with scenic roads, schools and residential neighborhoods butting up against high concentrations of data centers.

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